Recommitting ourselves to the planet

Star-Ledger file photoJeff Tittel, director of N.J. Sierra Club, says while more people are going green, government is moving in the opposite direction.

By Jeff Tittel

As we celebrate the 41st Earth Day today and millions of people around the country take part in events cleaning up litter and streams, fixing park benches and maintaining trails, we are under the biggest environmental threat since the first Earth Day.

Even though more people care about the environment and threats from pollution to public health and safety, we are seeing protections threatened and cut back. More people are buying green products, hybrid cars and renewable energy, and they are recycling more, underscoring the public involvement and commitment to environmental protection.

While the public is moving forward, our government is moving in the opposite direction. Fueled by the Supreme Court Citizens United decision, allowing corporations to make unlimited contributions to groups involved in election campaigns, hundreds of millions of corporate polluter dollars have been dumped into our political system. The results can be seen at both the federal and state level.

In Congress, there are attacks trying to weaken the federal Environmental Protection Agency and preventing it from regulating greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Some of our former environmental heroes, such as Rep. Leonard Lance (R-7th Dist.), are voting along tea party lines to gut environmental protections.

At the state level, Gov. Chris Christie is trying to weaken important environmental protections under the guise of streamlining and removing red tape that burdens businesses. The governor has stopped the adoption of drinking water standards to protect public health, called for no state regulations that exceed federal standards, rolled back important beach access rules and delayed implementation of clean air standards, all while promoting a waiver rule that gives the DEP commissioner power to waive compliance with 98 department rules.

The governor has made noise about repealing the Highlands Act, which protects the drinking-water supply for 5.4 million state residents, and has nominated Highlands Act critics to the Highlands Council, the body charged with implementing the law’s provisions.

Many of these policies and programs will not help our economy, but rather damage the critical resources upon which many industries in New Jersey depend, especially clean water. Green energy is the fastest-growing job sector in the state, and Christie’s energy policies threaten sustained growth in the industry.

Historically, we have seen environmental challenges before, but the public has overcome these threats by becoming active. The government has taken the side of special interests many times and public opposition has been essential in turning the tides.

Very rarely does the government just give the public new protections. Many of the open spaces we celebrate on Earth Day may not have been protected if not for citizens fighting to save the property. The Great Swamp would have been an airport; now it is a National Wildlife Refuge. The Pinelands would have been overwhelmed with sprawl development, but is now an almost 1 million-acre preserve of woodlands and wetlands. The Highlands would have been paved over, but is now a land-use model that helps protect the water supply for 64 percent of New Jersey’s residents.

Citizens have fought for laws such as the Superfund after the debacle at Love Canal and the fire at a chemical plant in Elizabeth. The Clean Water Act was passed because the Cuyahoga and Passaic rivers caught on fire and half a million people stood at the White House on the third Earth Day demanding President Richard Nixon sign it.

All the protections we take for granted today are in place because people stood up and fought, and now is the time for activism again. We need to look back at our history to see our future. We need to spend more time educating and activating people to stand and fight for the environment.